'Black Highway'

‘I’m really struck by how quiet they all are, and yet you are aware that it would be so noisy above from the motorway. There is a real sense of them being in-between spaces…’ This is the useful comment made by my wife, Diane, as we visited ‘Black Highway’ yesterday morning, as it opened its doors to the public for the first time. 

‘Why is that painting so baggy after what I told them to do? It looks terrible! There are too many pieces. The labels are too big? Why has that piece got the same title as that piece? What are those big cardboard labels sticking out of the back of the frames? Why is there no lighting on that painting? It’s too dark. What is that ‘toilets’ sign doing sat next to the painting? Those two are hung too close together…I wouldn’t have put the smaller one underneath the larger piece like that. I should have supervised it myself! I’m a control freak…I can’t get any sense of what it looks like. What does it say to anybody?’ These were some of the less useful comments swimming around my head as I looked around. Sometimes it’s a drag being the artist.

Hopefully, as more visitors respond in the next few weeks I’ll get a better sense of it all. Hopefully…